Forum - View topicREVIEW: Kemono Friends
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MarshalBanana
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23844 |
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@ relyat08 - yeah, you are misundersanding me. It's not that I don't think standards matter or people shouldn't care about visuals, of course. I like stellar visuals just as much as the next animation fan. All I'm saying is that when those standards aren't the highest - usually for budgetary or time reasons - let's not get too warped out of shape about it. Give a show a chance to see if it has elements that mitiage its lack of visual panache. You'd probably be miffed if somebody dismissed all of anime for its low frame rate (which is down for budget reasons, not lack of talent), so don't get too highfalutin when a show doesn't hit the level of visual awesomeness that would be nice in a perfect world.
edited to sound a little less grouchy. Last edited by Blood- on Mon Apr 03, 2017 6:21 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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vonPeterhof
Posts: 729 |
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This was apparently a minor meme in Japan a couple of years ago, which probably explains why they assumed the viewers would get it. Although, the Wikipedia article also mentions that prairie dogs "do not perform these behaviors with prairie dogs from other family groups", so it can be argued to be an inaccurate portrayal, but still nowhere near as inaccurate as "Americans great each other with a casual kiss on the lips" 
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11407 |
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Review Vapors' post. Then watch 3 or 4 episodes of the series. I think KF is one of those shows you have to see to get. Descriptions just don't do the whole package justice. If you only watched the first (or part of the first) episode before bailing, it's understandable to write it off. In the preview guide thread, I said "I probably won't be watching more, unless I do." But I did watch the next week, and then couldn't quit.  So I guess I was one of those who loved this almost out the gate, and was both surprised and delighted when it turned out that lots of other people were watching too.
Someone commented on that sakuga blog that KF was like a baby animal you just wanted to cuddle and tell it it was doing its best! That's not so far off. It's like the series itself is moe.
As I've said elsewhere, one thing I really liked about the series was how Kaban-chan used her head to solve problems without being obnoxious about it or making the other girls look stupid, or resorting to false modesty. Everybody had their talents to contribute, and intelligence just happened to be hers, without making her better than the rest. That's a nice balancing act, and is another example of the good writing in this. Since there's an egregious lack of a discussion thread for this, I'm going to ask here: spoiler[Is Kaban-chan turning into a Friend or are her fingers becoming gangrenous?  At first I thought it was dirt from the tree climb, but her fingertips started to turn right after they rescued Lucky Beast, and by the time she left it had spread up to her knuckles.]
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Philmister978
Posts: 309 |
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See the difference in that statement is that South Park's crappy CGI is intentional, designed to mimic crude paper cutout styles. That it takes a week to animate also factors into this. Kemono Friends can't really fall back on that excuse. And even if it does, the main difference is that it's not exactly working within its limitations. It's obvious that whoever is animating this show clearly is trying for a more professional-looking style than SP's crude cutout look. But doesn't come across as such. As a result, its animation quality is effectively on par with that seen in the CGI Berserk anime. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23844 |
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You're missing my point. Nobody cares about South Park's look because the show is funny. It's not like people sit around going, "oh, isn't clever how they deliberately make this show look like crude paper cut-outs." It just proves that visuals can be irrelevant to enjoying a show. That was my apparently incredibly difficult to understand point.
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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As much as I enjoyed Kemono Friends in both its writing and technical aspects, I sure hope this doesn't become a trend where everyone is now going to abandon 2D in favor of "ironic" 3DCG animation. The industry tends to be really bad at controlling itself when it comes to what becomes a hit.
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Laethiel
 Posts: 42 |
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spoiler[Her gloves and pantyhose are clearly regenerating over the course of the episode. The theory I've seen is that Sandstar in the atmosphere has turned/is turning her back into a Friend. She goes from no socks, to socks ending under the knee, to thighhighs; and similarly from no gloves, to slowly more and more coverage starting from the fingertips: https://togetter.com/li/1095338] |
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Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
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On the subject of visuals vs. writing, I hardly believe there is a winner. I forgot who once said this in a similar discussion, but simply: Animation is a hollistic experience.
I'll take two easy examples: Legend of the Galactic Heroes and the Monogatari series. I think these two can show how the harmony of the two make storytelling in animation important. In the case of Galactic Heroes, while the dialogue is at all times rich and interesting, it's sadly boorishly presented (partly because of its time limitation, although the movies are much better in that regard), often with long monologes of characters just standing and often doing nothing. Then you have Monogatari. Specifically, Bakemonogatari. There is a handful of episodes I find, dialogue-wise and story-wise, pretty boring and uninteresting, but I'd be a total liar if I ever said that I was unengaged. When I watch Monogatari I just don't take my eyes off the screen, because the visual presentation is just that strong and powerful. Both are shows that I enjoy, the first more than the latter, but I constantly know that there is something lacking, and that there isn't just a thing as a "saving grace" that rockets things to a ten out of ten, and I always weigh that in when I think of a show as a whole. I agree that there is no point in beating a dead horse that won't get up, but I don't believe in "just focusing on what I think was good" because that'd be a little dishonest. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11407 |
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Ah! I hadn't noticed spoiler[her lack of socks after being eaten, and I think I forgot that she'd normally been wearing gloves before that. It does raise the question of how her clothes were cloned from a strand of Mirai's hair...]
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gedata
 Posts: 615 |
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[quote="EricJ2"]
Well it WAS removed from Japanese app stores and there seems to be no plan to bring it back despite the anime's success so I wouldn't get my hopes. Not to mention, the series is still very much a "cult" thing outside of Japan anyway. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15501 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I watched the first episode, and then dropped it like a bag of bricks. It looked horrible and really unappealing, and in general unsophisticated in a way that it would clearly not improve. I did not pick it up midseason when I heard that it was getting a cult following because I was not going to be swayed by some sort of trend for ironies sake, nothing I saw could convince me that it could actually be good. Reading this review of the show alone would not convince me that it is actually worth watching, because it is nuts that even that sort of points would mean that it was enjoyable.
But I was convinced to at least watch some more. The thing was that at the end of the season I was complaining about the garbage I did watch like Marginal #4, and then some posts by people that I respect the opinions of a fair bit said they enjoyed it and I should give it a go. After getting pretty late with things with some mild frustration, I gave the second episode a go, it was mildly entertaining, but I was not entirely convinced that this entire thing was worth watching, so I watched the next episode. But it was approaching 1AM and I had finished episode 6 that I had to make myself stop so I could get some sleep and watch the rest, because I somehow ended up hooked. I was totally on the side that it looked and sounded horrible, with a big smear of being amateurish, but by giving it a go I actually fell in love with it. By any other comparison you would think that good writing requires things like complex characters and hugely deep plot, where you take into account things like realism or symbolism, something you just know is quality. But this show throws that entire concept out on its head, it is crazy that by just sticking to friendly character writing with serviceable plots, quirky and entertaining characters, and underpinning it surprising environmental storytelling that does not required to be focused on if you want to watch, it comes out as a surprising good package that you have to attribute to the writing. And on Blood-'s points, I thought it looked bad, and I still see at as being particularly unsophisticated and with some problems with animation, in practice I ended up finding it super charming. I think maybe a ridiculous point at myself, something I kind of really like is how maybe you could call uninterionally funny it is watching Lucky walk with bad animation style, and although that sounds like I am saying that it is so bad it is good, that is not quite it. There is a charm to the animation that actually grew onto me that really kind of grew onto me and I think was part of the package of what I enjoyed, like early RWBY. You can call it bad, and you might find it really hard to ignore, but I don't think it would have been the same without it. To put it in terms of games, which is often something I do and I strangely think is relevant for comparison, what comes to mind is the cult hits Dark Souls and Undertale, which might sound suuuper weird comparison. But I think Dark Souls itself can be called out for actually not being the best for animation, the mouths of models do not move, and when you look you can kind of see cheap textures around such as illusions of backgrounds, that in general the trick it uses is to not get you to look too closely. And no secret that Undertaile despite being a modern game is mostly made of low quality sprite, that most of the gameplay is incredibly low quality, but the result everyone sees is that it is actually part of the charm, that it plays off of its low quality elements and does something that might not have worked otherwise. The two games though are undeniably a labour of love, which is but one part of what I think also comes across in Kemono Friends. And both of those games get by with somehow having elements like overly quirky or simple characters that it is kind of easy to see that they could be an annoyance, and yet there is something underneath it, something you might ignore first as being unnecessary but shows that the creator put thought into things underneath the initial layer. That could sound like I am making a mountain out of a molehill, and perhaps I have, I only watched the series only a few days ago, I am not actually familiar with a lot of the talk of it. I am not even saying to go in expecting Dark Souls or Undertale, it never really gets super dark (twisted), or some sort of epic, and in its 12 episodes I think it has mostly put its cards on the table. But somehow it is just a nice surprise. I highly recommend picking it up again if you stopped early on, that I think it fits into the 3 episode thing, and trying not to sound too much like a douche, it is something you can only understand from actually experiencing. |
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Ambulator
Posts: 30 Location: California |
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I seem to be one of the few here who put Kemono Friends onto my watch list immediately. I can't claim any great insight, though. It looked like a well done kid's show and those are something I often like.
I do recall being disappointed that all of the initial reviews were somewhat dismissive of it, though. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 23844 |
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Thanks, Laethiel, I'm relieved to know that Bag-chan isn't turning gangrenous.
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DanQ
 Posts: 114 |
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There is one positive thing about animation – characters are never "off model'.
 (bad pun intended ~_^)
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